


The Colours of Gabriel Gray

by piecesofalice



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-02
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:36:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/pseuds/piecesofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written March 2007.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Colours of Gabriel Gray

\---

**BROWN**

  
The coffee tastes like mud and mortar. Thick, arduous and sugary, peppered brown by the small amount of out-of-date milk he had in the fridge; but he drinks it anyway and begins work on a nineteenth century watch some rich bastard won at an auction for his trophy wife because it looked "cute".

  
A pull and it springs to life, the finite noise of _tick, tick, tick_ melodious and monotonous at the same time. The brilliance is in the trademark, slightly worn away by weather and age but as clear to him as the day it was engraved.

  
He whispers the famous watchmaker's name to the dusty workshop and stares as the watch falls away from his hands, in slow motion, towards the oak floorboards that he should have swept last week.

  
The coffee tastes like shit as he drinks it, but the sound of beauty being kept from some faceless rich man as it breaks in two is sweeter than he could ever imagine.

  
\---

**ORANGE**

  
"Gabriel!"

  
He pretends not to hear.

  
"Gabriel! For God's sakes!"

  
The man he knew as his father stood in the doorway of Gabriel's bedroom and frowned.

  
"Dinner! I'm not telling you again."

  
He doesn't listen as the footsteps disappear down the hallway, back towards the lounge room where his mother sat in stasis and his sister scooped slop from a pot. Instead, he's riffling through his bag, searching and looking and locating and finally - he pulls out a rich, fresh orange from the side pocket and for a moment, he stares at it.

  
Then, without even peeling the skin, he begins devouring it like it was the last food on earth.

  
\----

**GREEN**

  
They buried his mother the same day as his father. Two coffins, side by side, the name of Gray chipped into granite between them.

  
"Ashes to ashes." The priest crossed himself.

  
Gabriel clutched his sister's shoulders and stared at the churned grass surrounding his parent's graves.

  
"Dust to dust."

  
\----

**BLUE**

  
The woman stood on the stage and sang of pain and agony, while his date watched in rapture.

  
"You likin' it, Gabe?" She was curvy and bright eyed, her skin almost glowing in the candlelight of the nightclub's low lighting. He knew he should nod, acknowledge, anything, but he found himself immobile as his eyes traced the outline of her shoulders.

  
"You're beautiful," he gasps, and she blushes and he follows suit.

  
That night, in her apartment, with the stereo loud enough so her roommate couldn't hear them, she opened herself to him.

  
As they lay together after, his glasses on the sideboard, he slept soundlessly for the first time in his life.

  
\----

**RED**

  
The haze that had fogged his brain since Davis arrived ebbed, and eventually, cleared.

  
He looked around the shop, the sound of silence ringing in his ears.

  
_He was broken. You fixed him._

  
Gabriel scratched his nose, and smiled.

  
\----

**PURPLE**

  
Chandra handed him a cup of coffee and smiled. "Are you excited?"

  
"Of course." He pushed his glasses up with his free hand, before drawing a sip from the cup.  
"This is what I have been waiting for."

  
It was the day he became someone. A human to admire, genetic royalty. It was the day he left behind cupboards of watch parts and the sound of his sister being beaten by the latest Joe she called boyfriend, the day he took his place among the men he'd always aspired to become.

  
He could smell the blood of Brian Davis on his hands and for a moment, as Chandra offered him a seat, he falted and almost fell.

  
But as his father said, the ways often justify the means; and his father, like everyone else, just ended up being broken like the rest of them.

  
\---

**GRAY**

  
Sylar flicked his eyes to the clock on the wall, then back to Peter Petrelli's anguished face against the wall.

  
There was no black and white.

  
There are only shades of Gray.

  
\----

  
_Fin._

  
\----


End file.
